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Review JN036: Satoshi and Go, Crawl Up From the Sand Hell!

Aren't gym leaders supposed to be able to deal with any Pokemon type they're facing?

The users complaing about the absence of helpers do have a point here: If such a major crisis occurs, you'd expect at least half of the gym leaders and the Elite Four to be there to help. But there was nobody there except those three helpless guys.
So, yes I'd call this a major weakness of the episode (fortunately the only one).

The fact it's in Hoenn really shows this. If it were in Kanto or Ash and Go were already in the area when they discovered the sandstorm I'd give it a pass, but this made the news in Kanto and Professor Cerise okayed two ten year olds to investigate. Assuming at least a day for Ash and Go to get to Hoenn, plus getting from Slateport to outside Mauville, you'd expect some kind of official response to stop people going in to be established. The timing on the crisis is completely off. It's possible they caught a flight considering the urgency, but that still doesn't account for the lack of on the ground support.
 
At least Aether developed beast balls so the Ultra Guardians could actually catch the UBs and release them. They would be pretty screwed otherwise.

Even without them, I'm sure that the Tapus would battle UBs anyway like they did in the games (well maybe not Bulu lol).
Which kinda raises the question of, if they could develop the technology to deal with the UBs, why rely entirely on children to then deal with it rather than forming a task for branch of Aether coordinated with the Kahunas. Kinda stretches the willing suspension of disbelief that in all of Alola it just so happens that Kukui’s class are the only ones qualified for taking on such a task.
The fact it's in Hoenn really shows this. If it were in Kanto or Ash and Go were already in the area when they discovered the sandstorm I'd give it a pass, but this made the news in Kanto and Professor Cerise okayed two ten year olds to investigate. Assuming at least a day for Ash and Go to get to Hoenn, plus getting from Slateport to outside Mauville, you'd expect some kind of official response to stop people going in to be established. The timing on the crisis is completely off. It's possible they caught a flight considering the urgency, but that still doesn't account for the lack of on the ground support.
A bit of a dark undertone but imagine how many people are possibly dead because of nobody being able to handle this before Ash and Go arrived.
 
Which kinda raises the question of, if they could develop the technology to deal with the UBs, why rely entirely on children to then deal with it rather than forming a task for branch of Aether coordinated with the Kahunas. Kinda stretches the willing suspension of disbelief that in all of Alola it just so happens that Kukui’s class are the only ones qualified for taking on such a task.
It's because Lusamine is a big manchild who wanted to create her own sentai team.
 
I didn't feel motivated enough to write this for a while, so it may seem a bit off. At least it did to me.

Pros:
  • +++ Let’s get the major positive of this episode out of the way. I’ll give Goh credit for actually competing in a full battle and ending it pretty fairly all the while taking a lead stance against Flygon. The entire battle was really decent and reminded me of some multi-phase raid boss battles from several RPG games I’ve played over the years, starting with the Sandstorm shield, then the Dragon Rush + Dig combo and finally the Draco Meteor spam, where each phase required a different strategy to counter it. Speaking of strategies, I’m really happy that another one of Ash’s crazy techniques was picked up by a character without any prompting, seeing that Draco Meteor climb gave me some good nostalgia. What’s even better is that Goh used it because he assumed that it would be something that Ash would obviously do and he couldn’t be any closer to the truth. Glad to see the characters learning from each other, this aspect has been really lacking in the dual protagonist format outside of a few rare examples. I was just hoping Ash and Sobble could have done more against Flygon, especially Ash who was forcefully written as totally helpless in the latter parts of the battles. They could have just had Flygon knock him and his Pokemon out cold (or at least out of the battle to the point that they can’t realistically interfere) when they got attacked at one point instead of that frozen helpless portrayal. And finally, I was hoping to see the introduction of Pyro Ball here (given the size of the Meteor that was kicked) to foreshadow Raboot’s evolution, since I’m really not to sure if I feel good about the match ending with Ember (then again, there have been stranger finishers so I guess I shouldn’t complain about that).
  • + Thankfully they didn’t portray Ash’s slump in a gag like light like the preview implied, even if Ash sulked a bit too much to the point it was a hindrance. And hopefully his comment about only training with melee moves being a mistake should hopefully indicate that Galarfetch’d and Riolu are learning some new moves soon. That ending scene with Pikachu and Riolu cuddling with Ash was precious, I’m pretty sure we’ll miss moments like those when Riolu ultimately evolves (even if you dislike the species).
Cons:
  • - - The biggest issue of the episode. The entire plot point about Ash’s slump is done very poorly (I don’t really think that it only happened to make Goh like like the big hero despite it giving off that impression in retrospect, that was just an unfortunate coincidence), that all stems down to this terrible self-containing format and lacking inter-episode consistency to a higher degree. The two losses at the beginning just felt very forced and uninteresting, and Riolu was portrayed as inexplicably weak all of a sudden despite earlier episodes telling us the contrary. They could have just had a stronger character (preferably a past Gym Leader; Surge?; or a trainer who knows Ash) who outmaneuvered Ash with actual strategy and had him drop in rank severely instead of some no-name irrelevant characters who got lucky with their hits and might as well be cardboard cutouts. Unlike the loss against Bea, these two just came off as unrealistic and contrived. Since I mentioned self-containment earlier… the entire slump comes about without gradual build-up AND gets resolved within this episode itself instead of being a multi-episode issue that could have benefited his writing even more (given that the next episode takes place in his second home region, him recovering there would have made a lot more sense than here).
  • - Speaking of lacking consistency, remember how Goh realized that instead of catching multiple Pokemon in evolutionary order, that he could just have a single Pokemon evolve if it chooses to in the previous episode? Let’s just say that they threw that little development out of the window (just like a lot of other developments he’s had in the past) and have him do what he used to do before the realization. What was the purpose of all that then? The way the Trapinch and Vibrava were captured were outrageously terrible. The moment his first ball attempt fails, he tries the same thing only this time as an extreme curveball that swings around from the back. And this is treated like some sort of special move for some reason? These GO mechanics are outright stupid and clearly don’t fit the anime, there was nothing positive involved there especially when you consider all the positives of the Flygon battle.
  • - - TERRIBLE WORLD BUILDING. Not only does Mauville feel like a generic city now, the entire setting of the episode is very contrived and would have made no difference if it took place in some desert location. We apparently have a serious crisis happening in a major city of the Hoenn region with the city being pretty much covered with sand (and trapping who knows how many people) and yet there’s no adult to help out, not even a single Gym Leader or trainer (yes, Wattson is on 'vacation' because plot demands it and since he's helpless against Ground types now never mind the fact that he's a Gym Leader who trains to cover type weaknesses). What’s worse is that they rely on two kids to help with the problem, it makes the entire series’ setting feel too centralized and dependent on the protagonists instead of having the Animeverse be a living and breathing world.
Additional:
  • If this episode is any indication, Goh should do more battles for his captures instead of the boring single ball or curve ball instant captures, they should introduce more unique scenarios (without any contrived stuff like today’s apocalypse desert city) involving Horde and SOS battles.
  • This episode was somewhat dark. You have Pokemon literally (although in Flygon’s case, unintentional) luring people proceeded by trapping them under sand in what is obviously a demise (not to mention all the other people that might be trapped in the buried buildings). But hey, be prepared for those very dangerous Pokemon who are capable of bringing about a semi-apocalypse, to start behaving like perfect little angels™ towards Goh from their next appearance onward. No need to address any kind of obedience or conflict issues with the trainer since it’s the writer’s pet Goh after all. /s

Verdict: I would have enjoyed this episode all the more despite some of those horrid catches and world building, if it weren’t for the bad handling of the entire rut Ash went into. That one aspect really diminishes the episode a lot more for me, so it’s 4.5/10 from me.

EDIT: Due to JN039, this slump does make it seem like it was only done to make Goh look like a hero and justify him getting a powerful Pokemon off the bat, rating dropped from 6 to 4.5
 
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An issue I have with the episode, alongside all of yours, is the amount of time between the three people we see entering the sandstorm and Ash and Goh arriving at 'Mauville'. It feels a bit contrived that the duo arrived just in time to help those people.
 
Which kinda raises the question of, if they could develop the technology to deal with the UBs, why rely entirely on children to then deal with it rather than forming a task for branch of Aether coordinated with the Kahunas. Kinda stretches the willing suspension of disbelief that in all of Alola it just so happens that Kukui’s class are the only ones qualified for taking on such a task.

A bit of a dark undertone but imagine how many people are possibly dead because of nobody being able to handle this before Ash and Go arrived.
Maybe them travelling to ultra space, or having connections with solgaleo had something to do with it? Interesting decision to say the least though.

I was thinking if Silvally was created successfully, then the ultra guardians wouldn't have been made - or at least the way we see them. There are multiple in game, meaning they could hypothetically produce a legion of them or something if needed. This could've been that task force Aether could've used for such situations.
 
Hala: There was an idea...

Kukui: To bring together a group of remarkable children...

Burnet: To see if they could become something more...

Lusamine: So when we needed them, they could fight the battles...

Wicke: That we never could.

Background Music to listen to while reading this.
Somewhere in the multiverse the MCU Avengers have the sudden urge to scream silently at having the Ultra Guardians compared to them.
 
Losing stinks, but it is very difficult to feel sympathy for Ash when he has powerhouses like Gengar and Dragonite available (not even gonna mention all of his other mons at Oak's or in Alola; can't wait for next week!). If Riolu is upset from the loss, put it in reserve to use some of your other Pokemon until you and the little blue guy get some more training time in.

Seeing Ash this upset with more powerful mons up his sleeve is like seeing the Power Rangers battling in civilian mode when I'm screaming at the T.V. for them to morph already or when Gohan or Vegeta fight an opponent in base form only to get battered but I'm yelling for them to go Super Saiyan already.

This 'false' sense of dread and suspense isn't doing it for me. If this was Ash or another character at the start of their journey with no fully evolved Pokemon to call upon then it would make more sense. Geez, your baby Pokemon lost to the wrestling octopus who was most likely the Pokemon used to defeat Korina's MEGA LUCARIO and you act surprised?

Get it together Ash...

Why not train more with your kung-fu duck as well? At this rate, I'd rather see it evolve BEFORE Riolu just to give the little baby more to work for!
 
Losing stinks, but it is very difficult to feel sympathy for Ash when he has powerhouses like Gengar and Dragonite available (not even gonna mention all of his other mons at Oak's or in Alola; can't wait for next week!). If Riolu is upset from the loss, put it in reserve to use some of your other Pokemon until you and the little blue guy get some more training time in.

Seeing Ash this upset with more powerful mons up his sleeve is like seeing the Power Rangers battling in civilian mode when I'm screaming at the T.V. for them to morph already or when Gohan or Vegeta fight an opponent in base form only to get battered but I'm yelling for them to go Super Saiyan already.

This 'false' sense of dread and suspense isn't doing it for me. If this was Ash or another character at the start of their journey with no fully evolved Pokemon to call upon then it would make more sense. Geez, your baby Pokemon lost to the wrestling octopus who was most likely the Pokemon used to defeat Korina's MEGA LUCARIO and you act surprised?

Get it together Ash...

Why not train more with your kung-fu duck as well? At this rate, I'd rather see it evolve BEFORE Riolu just to give the little baby more to work for!
It's in Ash's character to try to win rematches with the Pokémon he used in the original battles. Like how in the Sinnoh League, he used the same team against Paul as he had used in their earlier Full Battle, despite having the option to use any of his reserve Pokémon as well.
 
Why did that Flygon have to target my boy Sobble like that? ;__;
Riolu and Pikachu got hit too wym?

Also Sobble was the one who destroyed Flygon's sand shield (and blasted Flygon with Water Gun twice XD)
It makes sense Flygon was gonna take an aim at Sobble.

Sobble, Riolu, and Pikachu all had to take a backseat so Raboot could have his moment
 
It's in Ash's character to try to win rematches with the Pokémon he used in the original battles. Like how in the Sinnoh League, he used the same team against Paul as he had used in their earlier Full Battle, despite having the option to use any of his reserve Pokémon as well.
He's gone against this from time to time, and it's never failed him before. Tailow was subbed for Corphish in his rematch with Brawly and Hawlucha was subbed for Pikachu in his rematch with Wulfric. Why can't he just do this again? I'd frankly prefer it to "MoRe ReEoLu PlZ".
 
He's gone against this from time to time, and it's never failed him before. Tailow was subbed for Corphish in his rematch with Brawly and Hawlucha was subbed for Pikachu in his rematch with Wulfric. Why can't he just do this again? I'd frankly prefer it to "MoRe ReEoLu PlZ".

The rematch against Bea will have a big Riolu focus, so I’d much rather have seen Gengar or Dragonite get the chance to battle and Ash to rebuild some confidence.
 
So, haven't done a review of a Journeys episode in a while (to put it mildly). And the first couple of posts here seem to be somewhat positive of the episode. So how about I give it a try and review this episode? I mean, this is an episode that focuses on Ash overcoming the low spirits' he's in due to a crushing defeat and those tend to be pretty great. So how bad can this b... Oh... oh... Sooooo, I see the series hasn't improved in the 3 months I was gone.

Okay, how about we start form the... well, start. Ash's chain of defeats. Why did they have to be crammed in the first 3-4 minutes of the episode? Seriously, these battles are supposed to be the thing that destroy his self-confidence, the catalysts that lead to him descending into a depression. Yet they were thrown in at the start of an episode that barely focuses on them, which leads to them being rushed for the sake of drama (and the fact that Ash's issue gets resolved in this very episode makes them feel... I don't know, hollow, non-consequential, almost meaningless). And thanks to the battles being rushed, Ash ends up looking like a complete idiot and Riolu appears to be nothing more than a weakling. His sole "strategy" is to spam Vacuum Wave from a distance and... that it. He keeps using the same attack over and over, and every time it fails he just... stands there and let's Riolu get KO'd. He doesn't use any other moves, he doesn't improvise some one of his trademarked outside-the-box strategies, he doesn't even tell Riolu to dodge... once those Vacuum Waves fail, he doesn't do anything at all. And poor Riolu was nerfed to oblivion in those battles. Seriously, the poor guy gets defeated after getting hit by just 2-3 attacks. Yes, you could argue that the Psywave really did a number on it in the first battle. But in the second one? There's no excuse for it going down after getting hit by two, very basic, very weak attacks. And the fact that Ash gets pushed the way back to Normal Class... am I the only one that feels like that invalidates (or, at the very least, weakens) his victory against Korrina? The whole point of the battle was that the winner gets to move to the Super Class, yet, a few episodes later (and in the span of 3 minutes), Ash is all the way back to Normal Class after two short battle. Not to mention the animation in those battles being just so... underwhelming, to put it lightly. Why couldn't we have an entire episode prior to this one dedicated to Ash training for his rematch with Bea and battling in the PWC (and giving him more respectable losses that push him close to Normal Class, but not all the way there yet (since it wouldn't hurt to leave some stakes for the Bea rematch)), and then have this episode deal with the aftermath of all that. And what's with all the comical faces? This is supposed to be an important character arc (...well, "arc" in quotes) for Ash. Why is it being treated like a joke? Why do you have to shove SM's hyper-comedic faces in here? :bulbaFacepalm: Sigh, remember when build-up was a thing? Remember when character arcs took more than one episode and were treated with care and respect? I 'member...

Anyways, moving on, next we have the sudden sandstorm that enveloped Mauville City. To which I have to say two words: horrendous. worldbuilding. Besides the fact that Mauville City looks nothing like it did before (and no, it being redesigned in ORAS isn't an explanation, since the city looks nothing like it does in the games (not to mention that it's still a coastal city in the games, while, here, it miraculously turned into an inland city for nough reason)), nobody seems to be doing anything about the mysterious sandstorm that's suddenly burying the city in a tomb of sand. Wattson is nowhere to be found (despite the fact that his Manectric can learn Ice Fang and his Gym assistant's Ampharos can learn Dragon-type moves (both of which would be useful when dealing with the Flygon responsible for this sandstorm)), no Officer Jennys or other police officers are around to help keep people away from the sandstorm or to help evacuate the city (despite them being shown doing things like that in all of the past series), no Champion/Elite Four in sight to help with this "little" problem (despite Steven Stone being shown to be traveling around and being willing to help in a crisis (to the point of traveling to another region to help stop it)), no Pokémon Professor investigating the event (even though a Flygon attempting to nest in a city would falls under Birch's area of expertise (not to mention the hundreds of other scientists in Hoenn who would love to study such a strange weather condition)). A sand tornado comes out of nowhere and devastates an entire city and nobody is doing anything about it. Worldbuilding, thy name is not Pokémon Journeys. And then there's the whole Flygon "song", which barely makes any sense. The sand that rubs on Flygon's wings is creating a peculiar sound that sounds like a song. ...okay, interesting fact, I guess? But wait, this unintentional "song" has mesmerizing properties that cause it to hypnotize people and make them go into the sandstorm to search for its source (I guess... they never actually explain what exactly happened to those randos, so that's the best explanation I could find). Wait, what? But it doesn't affect everyone, since there are dozens of other people on the road who don't get the sudden urge to jump into the sandnado when hearing the "song" (including Ash and Go). Wait... so what was the point of the song hypnotizing people in the first place, if it never does that outside of that one instance? And what was the point of those extras being mesmerized by the song and them falling in a Trapinch's trap? Was it so that Go would have to capture a Trapinch in order to save them? Why, though? We've seen time and time again that Go is willing to catch any Pokémon he sees, regardless of whether he has a reason to do so or not. Actually, thinking about it, couldn't they have made these people be some kind of scientists who were called to investigate this phenomenon and, after being intrigued by the strange "song" that was coming from inside the sand cyclone (without being magically hypnotized by it), they decided to go and investigate it, ending up disappearing in the sand twister? That way, you establish that there are people concerned with the issue that are working on a way to save the city (and you could even throw in some police officers setting up barricades to keep people away from the sandstorm) and you don't create a possible obstacle for Ash and Go that gets ignored as soon as it's established.

Next up, there're the Go captures, which, at this point, I'm growing more and more apathetic toward. He just chucks his balls at all the Pokémon he encounters and, when that fails, he just starts chucking even more balls. It's bland, it's boring, it's presents no difficulties for Go and it messes with decades of well-established in-universe rules. So, basically, they're just as terrible as they were eight months ago. Nothing new here. Moving on.

And, finally, there's the battle against Flygon. First things first, Go deciding to battle Flygon after his first Poké Ball fails to even touch it... is out of character for him. We've seen time and time again that, unless he's forced to battle a Pokémon (either because his own Pokémon want to battle or because the Pokémon he's trying to catch is going on a rampage (or some other similar reason)), he'll always choose to throw more Poké Balls at the Pokémon he's trying to catch, regardless of their size, type, evolution stage, strength, abilities or personality. And, from what I've seen and read, Go hasn't had a character arc to change his mentality (on the contrary, other characters have praised Go's actions and attitude). Heck, we even see him pull his usual shtick in this very episode, just a few minutes before Flygon appears out of the sand. So for him to suddenly decide, in the middle of this episode, that he's gonna battle a Pokémon that he can't catch on his first try, instead of throwing a barrage of regular Poké Balls (like we've seen him do before), just doesn't make sense for his character at this point. That said... I actually liked it. That doesn't negate the fact that Go's out-of-characterness is an issue, it just made an otherwise slump of an episode a bit more enjoyable. Flygon wasn't easily defeated and proved to be quite the obstacle. Ash doubting his strategies and second-guessing himself made sense, considering his earlier defeats and the sulkiness that came with them. Go used some interesting strategies, like hardening the sandstorm's sand with Water Gun or having Raboot listen for Flygon's movements in the sand, that actually make sense from a character standpoint, as he's been shown to be smart and analytical as far back as the 2nd episode. So, with the exception of Ash using Electric-type moves of a Ground-type, which is as annoying as ever, not to mention nonsensical (by now, he's journeyed through 8 different regions, defeating dozens of Gym Leader, battled hundreds of different trainers (some of which were just as strong as him, if not stronger), fought against multiple villainous teams and their mind-controlled legendaries, participated in multiple competitions, managed to defeat a couple of Legendary Pokémon and has even become the Champion of a Pokémon League, and yet, despite all that, he still doesn't know the how the type chart works?!) and the animation (which was kind of... stiff), the battle was mostly pretty good. ...but then the ending comes and ruins everything. Now, I did just compliment Go's strategizing and considered it a positive a moment ago. But there's a difference between using the terrain to your advantage and pulling an Ash-style strategy that uses the opponent's move against, despite having limited battling experience. Not to mention that Ash didn't come up with this strategy on the fly, he based it on another, similar strategy, which, in turn, was inspired by the events of the previous episode. But that's not even the worst part. No, the worst part, is that Ash not only doubts that Go's Draco Meteor Climb would work (despite the fact the he used this very strategy two series ago to win in his Gym battle against Grant), but he's actually amazed by and calls it a "crazy tactic" (despite the fact that he not only used that same strategy before, he's the one who invented it in the first place). I'm sorry, what? I'M SORRY, WHAT?! It's not enough that Go came up (more like, copied) with an Ash strategy out of the blue, but you have to make Ash be so out-of-character that he's shocked and surprised by a strategy that he himself came up with two series ago? Why?! Now, I get that Ash is feeling depressed because of his losses and all that. But gloom makes you doubt yourself and think less of yourself. It doesn't erase your intuition, your knowledge, your experience, nor does it turn you into a completely different person. Why couldn't they just have Ash realize that Go's plan is very similar to his own strategies, thus helping him snap out of a depression that causes him to doubt himself (for the, what, third time)? Why must you have Go be the one who teaches Ash about being Ash? And why did they have to give an important episode to a writer who, so far, has only done 3 episodes (two underwhelming fillers and a disappointing Go episode) so far? Actually, that seems to be a recurring question this episode: why? Why throw a bunch of battle at the start of the episode, if you're gonna rush them and use them to squeeze in some Sun & Moon-style """"funny"""" faces? Why have people be hypnotized by Flygon's "song", if it's never gonna affect the main characters and it's never gonna be brought up again? Why have the episode take place in Mauville City, if you're gonna turn it into a generic city that's indistinguishable from an anime-original location (and why not show Wattson dealing with the crisis, since he's the local Gym Leader that's supposed to be helping in a time of like this)? Why not show people trying to deal with this disaster prior to Ash and Go's arrival? Why, why, why, why?

Overall? This was just... bad. Really, really bad. The battle with Flygon was alright (bar it's climax), but 5 minutes of good ain't gonna save a 22-minutes episode that's mostly filled with garbage. Ash's losses were rushed, his reactions to those losses were too Sun & Moon-ish, a lot of the things surrounding the sandstorm are nonsensical and downright absurd when you think about them for just a second, the animation was underwhelming and I've already said my piece about that ending (and no amount of Pikachu/Riolu cuddles is gonna change how terrible it was). This episode reminds me of everything that's wrong with this series and why I slowly lost interest in the series and took a break from it. Thank Arceus the upcoming episodes are more interesting (the Alola reunion (with my favorite Alolan companion wiping the floor with Go being the cherry on top (unless that cherry is secretly rotten, which it better not be!)) and the Bea rematch (with Chuck's return as an added bonus) really can't come soon enough).

On a side note, I really liked the Go-Goggles scene. It wasn't drawn out, it didn't involve any comically hyperbolic reactions, it was in line with Sobble's character. And it managed to get a chuckle out of me. So good job on making a funny scene that's actually... well, funny. More of this, please. Less of... these.
 
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